Textile Unbound

India’s textile legacy is a vibrant chronicle: cotton’s resilient khadi base powering freedom movements and global trade; silk’s exquisite finesse in Kanjeevaram and Banarasi weaves; dyeing’s superlative craft yielding hues from Bagh’s indigos to Phulkari reds and Bandhani spectrums; embroidery’s surface magic; women’s life-enforcing motifs of fertility, protection, and daily tales, as in Kutch mirrors or Punjab stitches.

From this rich soil springs today’s revolution. Contemporary artists challenge these...